From Pieces to the Puzzle
by Resident-Of-Melancholy-Hill
Summary: Rather then recuperating from her first trial loss, Mia Fey is thrown into a tumult of attempted murders and confusion. Will Mia, with the help of Diego Armando and Miles Edgeworth, be able to put all of the pieces together in time? Or will the enemy win?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So i started this story, didn't like where it was headed, took it off of fanfiction, edited it, and here it is again. Hopefully it's better this time around! So please enjoy my first AA fanfic and tell me what you think about the first chapter!**

I walked into the office feeling quite nervous.

It was the day before my first trial. I stopped by the office café for a cup of coffee before I headed to my office. Diego Armando was already there reading the newspaper and drinking what was probably his eighth cup of coffee.

He said that it kept him awake during the long boring office days, and that it kept him energized during trials. I was surprised he didn't go into one of his long bragging rants while I was getting my coffee.

It's not that his bragging bugged me, it was that he would follow you around as he went on and on about his own special coffee blends. Listening to them sometimes wasted a lot of time.

I walked to my small corner office feeling excited. I sat down to read over the case file again. I had already read it eleven times, but I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything.

I opened the case file and saw a not attached to the top page. 'Mia, meet me in my office this morning at 9 'o' clock. -Mr. Grossberg.' I looked up at the clock. 9:03. I was late.

I had to travel up seven flights of stairs before I got to the floor where Mr. Grossberg's office was located. The elevator wasn't working, and the stairs were my only option.

I opened the door onto the stair landing and started my ascent. I had just made it to the third floor landing when I heard the door from the fourth floor office area open. I turned to see who it was, but before I could catch even the slightest of glimpses, I was hit over the head with a heavy object.

I fell to the floor, but I wasn't unconscious. I tried to stand, to get to my feet, to run. But the person had me pinned to the ground the second I hit the floor.

"I was going to just send you a notice on not to win the trial tomorrow, but I guess I'll just make it so you won't be defending! Oh, and in case you do survive this, I have a back up plan. One that will insure you don't win the case tomorrow!" It was a man's voice that spoke, deep and rough.

I heard the sound of an item being lifted, probably the same one I was hit with before.

I struggled against the man's grip before he had a chance to bring down the weapon in his hand.

He had to drop it to hold me down.

"Stop moving!" he growled. I waited for him to once again reach for his weapon to make my move. I rolled as hard as I could towards the stairs and was close enough that I could actually roll down the steps. I did so.

My body was jolted up and down as I rolled down the entire third stair case and landed with a thud.

My assailant had been shaken off. I now quickly got to my feet. I needed a good look at who this attacker was. I looked up the stairs to where he was standing up. Tall, brown curly hair that's shoulder length, deep scar across face. That should be enough, I thought.

"Get back here you retch!" he said as he came down the stairs. I also noted that he had a limp on his right leg. I turned to run, but was stopped when I saw Diego Armando charging up the stairs.

"Out of my way Ms. Fey." He growled as he ran past me and up the next flight of stairs in two bounds. He tackled the man who had attacked me, and soon had him pinned to the ground.

"The police are on there way to pick you up." Diego told the man. I ran up the stairs in shock.

"Mr. Armando, How did you know what was happening?" I asked staring at him. He looked up at me, and I saw that he actually seemed to be having fun.

"Mr. Grossberg called me. He asked if I had seen you lately, and that he had had an appointment with you at 9:00. He called at 9:08. I knew it wasn't like you to be late so I assumed something bad had happened. Sure enough, I walked onto the first floor stair landing just in time to witness you crashing down the third stairwell. I was a little surprised. So I called the police, then ran up here." He said like it was nothing, "You're okay, aren't you kitten?" he asked me next.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said. The entire situation had made me lose myself for a moment, and I was still trying to collect myself. I didn't, however, get myself together until the police arrived.

Diego still had the man pinned to the ground when they arrived, and I was still sitting there on the cold, cement staircase. The police took the man away and said that he would be charged with physical assault and third-degree attempted murder. The trial was going to be held with in the next month.

Great, mark that on my calendar, I thought as I watched them leave.

At this point in time Diego had left, quite abruptly, when he remembered he had an important meeting to go to at the Criminal Affairs Department.

I turned, and was about to leave the scene, when I caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a small piece of folded paper on the ground. I picked it up and read what was written on it.

What was on it made me dizzy, and I had to sit down on the concrete steps to keep myself from toppling over.

3270 King Street, it read.

My address. What was my apartment address doing on a piece of paper that belonged to a person I didn't know?

Wait, it could belong to Diego, or one of the police officers, I thought. There was no reason to get worked up over it.

The pre-occurring events must have rattled my nerves. I took a deep breath, tucked the paper in my pocket, and rose to my feet. I then headed back down the stairs towards my office. Mr. Grossberg would have to wait. I had investigating to do. Plus, I had a trial file to re-read...again.


	2. Chapter 2

**chapter 2. i tried to make things flow a bit more with this chapter. feel free to tell me what you think!**

I collapsed onto the couch in my living room. The trial could not have gone any worse. The real killer, Dahlia Hawthorne, got away. I could do nothing to stop her. I mean, what could I have done? My client was dead after all. Terry Fawles had committed suicide because of that woman. That Dahlia Hawthorne.

I felt sick. I couldn't do anything. The entire day had been terrible. From almost getting killed at work, to realizing the sad truth about the trial, to having my client kill himself, to Dahlia Hawthorne getting away, and then, finally, to having my car break down.

I was halfway home when my car rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. The towing guy had to give me a ride back home.

"I'm never going back to court." I mumbled to myself as I reached for the television remote that was lying on the coffee table. I pushed the "on" button and the black screen came to life.

The channel my TV was set to turn on to was the news, which I normally enjoyed watching. At that moment, however, I would rather not. Watching about my failure and the suicide of Mr. Fawles was not on my agenda. My finger moved towards the button which would change the channel, but my finger stopped in mid-motion when I saw what was on the screen.

Brown curly hair that was shoulder length, and a deep scar that ran across his face. The caption that went with the picture read, "Aaron Syral Uncovered as the Brute Assassin!"

My face went white. The man who had attacked me earlier was the Brute Assassin, the most known assassin in the city. His name described him exactly. He attacked and killed with brute force.

Unlike most assassins, as soon as he got an assignment from a client, he set out to kill. Aaron Syral never waited for just the right moment. When he first saw his victim, that was when he'd attack.

He would also kill out in the open. His most famous job was the killing of the town's mayor. A single bullet shot to the head. The mayor had been in the middle of a town hall speech.

"Lowering the town's crime rate is at the top of my agenda" were the last words the mayor ever said. That's when Aaron Syral pulled out his gun. After shooting the mayor, he disappeared. No one could find him, and the police searched for three weeks after the assassination. That was another thing he was famous for. Committing a crime in public, and then vanishing.

"So someone wants me dead." I said quietly to myself. My stomach did a somersault and I felt even worse than before.

_What's the point of killing me? I've never done anything to anybody. _

I sunk into the couch cushions and closed my eyes. Hundreds of thoughts pushed themselves into my head, and my brain instantly focused on sorting through them all. An assassin attacks me before a trial, and then I lose the trial. The woman who got away, Dahlia Hawthorne, had never seemed even the slightest bit flustered through out the trial. Even when I had accused her of murder, that sweet smile had been plastered on her face.

_Could she have hired the assassin? No. That wouldn't make sense. If she was so confident in not being discovered, she wouldn't have hired an assassin. Would she? Well, she could have. Maybe she wasn't one hundred percent positive, so the assassin would have taken care of all worry. But then again, today was my first day in court. If she had hired Aaron Syral, and he had killed me, then there would be the chance of a state attorney taking over the case. That state attorney could have been experienced. She probably wouldn't have risked going up against an experienced defense attorney when the chance at having a rookie like me handling the defense was there. So, I guess she wouldn't have hired Mr. Syral. But then, who was it?_

I went through a list of people that i knew. Marvin Grossberg, Payne Winston, Miles Edgeworth, Diego Armando, Maya Fey, Morgan Fey...

"She wouldn't dare." I whispered. Morgan Fey. There was the possibility that it had been her. Ever since my mother, who was Morgan's younger sister, had taken the Kurain Master spot, my Aunt Morgan had desperately been trying to get the position. Normally, she would have been next in line, but my mother's spiritual techniques had been stronger.

I was technically the next in line, and I had no idea when the next Master would be named. My mother, Misty Fey, had disappeared years ago, and that is why I became a lawyer in the first place. To try and figure out as much as possible about my mother's disappearance has always been my goal.

"I might as well find out." I stood up and walked over to the kitchen counter. The house phone sat there with a list of numbers directly to the right of it. Dialing a phone number, I waited. After the phone had rung four times, I heard a voice on the other end of the line.

**"Hello?"**

"Ah good you're still at work. I need you to pick up the case file that I left on my desk. The one about today's trial. Could you meet me at the park in about twenty minutes?"

**"Uh sure thing. See you then I guess."**

"Thanks a lot Diego." I hung up the phone and hurriedly made another call to one Miles Edgeworth.


	3. Chapter 3

I stepped out of the taxi cab feeling annoyed. Miles Edgeworth had refused to help, and claimed that he was busy with other things. He said that since he had just finished as the prosecutor of a case where the defendant killed himself, further investigation was necessary. Prosecutors were not needed for the initial suicide investigation.

He probably didn't feel like helping me, I thought as I strolled through People Park. There was no sign of Diego yet, so I made my way over to a bench. There weren't many people at the park and everything was pretty quiet. My stomach still hadn't completely settled from the news of Aaron Syral, so I was still a little jumpy.

"Brought the files you wanted." I must have leapt fifty feet into the air. Diego had somehow snuck up behind me with out my noticing him. I stood up and turned around to face him.

"Never, and I mean _never_, do that again." He was standing there with the case file in one hand and a to-go coffee mug in the other. He cocked an eyebrow and had an amused expression on his face.

"Surely I'm not that scary. Am I, kitten?" I gave him a serious look.

"Not funny. I just recently found out that the man who attacked me earlier was the Brute Assassin, and I need your help with figuring out who hired him." I tried to regain my composure as quickly as possible. Diego's look of amusement faded to one of concern. I filled him in on all the details that I had obtained, and I did my best to explain who I thought had hired the assassin and why.

"So you think your aunt did it? I suppose it's possible." He said as he came around to stand next to me. I sat back down, and so did he. We sat in silence for a little while, each of us lost in our own thoughts about the situation.

"Why'd you want me to bring these anyway?" He handed me the case file. Flipping through several pages, I skimmed for any information on Dahlia Hawthorne.

"For information on Hawthorne of course." A quizzical look spread over Diego's face.

"What does she have to do with anything?"

"For some reason I'm starting to remember a rumor I heard while I was visiting Maya at the village. Something about how my aunt had several daughters and she tried keeping them secrets. Or at least that's close to what I heard. I don't know how relevant it is considering the woman who told it to me was taken away to a mental hospital the next month, but at least it's something."

Diego still didn't understand what Dahlia had anything to do with it. I sighed and explained further.

"Ms. Hawthorne was adopted, remember? She said that her old family was full of lies and they didn't want her. Lies. If my aunt is her mother, then it would make sense." It didn't make absolute perfect sense, but I was sure things would work out eventually.

"Okay then. So what do you suggest we do about all this?" He took a sip of his coffee and a small smile crept onto the corners of his mouth. That man and his coffee.

"I have a few small ideas. We should probably try and talk to Syral about the assassination job, and taking a trip to Kurain Village may help some. I also need to get in touch with Edgeworth."

Diego chuckled, "Those ideas are small? But about that prosecutor, how could he help? He was the one who let Ms. Hawthorne get away in the end really."

"No, don't blame Edgeworth. It was a room full of rookie attorneys, and none of us could do anything to stop it. And I wanted to talk to Ms. Hawthorne about everything. She may not have given anything in court, but I have a feeling we could get more out of her. Edgeworth's a prosecutor and has a lot of connections." It was obvious enough. Well, at least I thought it was.

Diego nodded and drank more of his coffee. We fell silent again, and our thoughts wandered to several different aspects of the problem. I was wondering how we could possibly get everything done. Getting the authorities involved probably wasn't the best idea. Most of the facts that Diego and I were going off of were rumors and hunches, and the police probably wouldn't take much interest. It would also be quite a challenge to explain everything to them, so I figured Diego and I were on our own.

"Mia, about the trial earlier, it wasn't your fault. You have to realize that." Diego said out of no where. I was shocked. I still blamed myself, but how did he know that?

"I-I know. I just feel like I _should _have been able to do something more." I responded. The wind at the park picked up, and I suddenly felt quite cold.

Diego was about to say something more when my cell-phone rang. Digging around in my pockets, I finally located it and pulled it out. I didn't recognize the number on the screen.

"Hello?"

**"Miss Fey! Get out of the park. Now. Get everyone in the park out if you can." **

"Mr. Edgeworth? What's the matter?" I stood up and Diego did as well.

"What's he saying? What's going on Mia?" I motioned for him to be quiet.

**"No time for questions. Just get out of there. Hurry!"**

"Uh okay, but tell me why. We're leav-" My eyes were drawn to the entrance of the park. A man dressed in a long black trench coat had just arrived, and he was reaching inside his jacket. A gun. He drew out a small pistol, but then reached in with his other hand. His hand came out holding _another _pistol. Both of them were High Standard .22 pistols.

I had heard of .22 pistols before. The velocity and caliber of the gun was enough to get the bullet inside someone's head, but not out again. Meaning that the small bullet could enter a person's skull, but not have enough force to get out. The bullet would ricochet around inside the person's skull. Not exactly a pleasant thing.

**"Miss Fey?"**

"I'm hanging up Edgeworth." I shut my phone and carefully slid it back into my pocket. The man was staring straight at Diego and me.

"Run." We took off towards the park's back entrance. The sound of gunshots and screams filled our ears.

We raced out of the park and past the Kitaki Mansion not slowing for a moment. More screams echoed through the neighborhood.

As we raced away, further and further from the park, I found my self wishing that no one had gotten hurt.


End file.
